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I love Jessica Darling. She is smart, sarcastic, and a fellow Jersey girl. Back in 2008 I picked up Sloppy Firsts: A Jessica Darling Novel after seeing it at the bookstore. I then flew through the rest of the series in a matter of days and have been recommending it to everyone I know ever since then. I was eight years late picking up Sloppy Firsts, though. It was first published way back in 2001, when I was starting college. (This is my excuse for missing out on it back then!). But Megan McCafferty is throwing a month-long party in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Sloppy Firsts. I am thrilled to be a part of the party today, interviewing both Jessica and Megan. 🙂

First, a few questions for Jessica Darling!

Welcome, Meg! I’m a Jersey girl, and I like to think that Jessica and I are very similar (clearly me projecting). One of my biggest guilty pleasures is MTV’s Jersey Shore. So who would Jessica’s favorite Jersey Shore cast member be, and why?

Snooki. Jessica would hate to admit it, of course. But I think she’d have grudging admiration any girl who is bold enough to do a drunken dance-floor cartwheel in a thong.

Haha, very true! I think we can all agree with that. How about some other aspects of pop culture. What’s on Jessica’s iPod today? What is she reading? (I’m cheating, I know- this is two questions. 🙂 )

Jessica listens to LCD Soundsystem because James Murphy was so heavily influenced by 80s new wave and electronica. And she reads Jezebel.com and wishes it had existed when she was in college so she could have gotten an internship there.

Sigh. More things Jessica and I have in common. I love Jezebel. I’m addicted to celebrity gossip and other ridiculousness. What about Jessica? If she had to choose one celebrity crush, who would it be?

Len Levy, lead singer of the multiplatinum band The Mighties.

You stumped me there. Now I have to google The Mighties! Itunes, here I come. Forget celeb crushes though. Tell us what Marcus Flutie is like today! How has he changed? How has he stayed the same? What are your future plans?

Marcus is happier now than he’s ever been. Let’s just leave it at that.

Oooh. An intriguing answer. 🙂 And you, Meg? What’s your life like right now?

As for me, I’m working on the idea for my next book. And THUMPED (sequel to Bumped) comes out in Spring 2012.

Woot! Can’t wait to read THUMPED! But first, back to Jessica. What was her New Year’s Resolution for 2011?

Don’t feel guilty when good things happen to you.

I like that. Words to live by from Jessica Darling. So Meg, as you look back to when you were first drafting Sloppy Firsts, what advice would you give to past-Meg?

Oh, to be so clueless about the business of selling books. You’ll never be so blissfully naïve again.

Haha. I guess there’s nothing better than blissful ignorance. Before the business end of writing came into the picture, you had to draft. What came first? Did Jessica come to you as a character, or was the concept/plot the first thing that you started with?

Voice came first. Then I created a character to go with that voice. I struggled with plot, trying to figure out what was going to happen to this Jessica Darling girl that I had invented. The title SLOPPY FIRSTS actually came from another unrelated short story I wrote in college that eventually was published in Seventeen magazine as TRUE BLUE.

And what type of writer are you? Do you plan ahead/plot or do you simply fly by the seat of your pants?

It’s a combination of planning, inspiration and intuition. I have to know how the book begins and ends, with very flexible ideas for what happens in between. I love making discoveries about the story and the characters as I go along. Those surprises are what keep things interesting for me as a writer—and for the readers.

Do you write everyday? Do you have a specific writing schedule?

When I’m working on a book, I write from Monday to Friday while my son is in school. I have a minimum word count that I must get done (usually 750 words) before I’ll allow myself to do anything else, like go to the gym or go out to lunch. Once my son comes home, I’m done for the day. I try to keep my writing life and my real life as separate as possible, which can be a challenge because I work at home.

And what books are you reading now? Any recommendations?

I just finished Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, the most charming romance I’ve read in ages. Now I’m reading Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes. It won a bunch of awards for YA fiction, but I think it could have just as easily won accolades if it had been published as an adult title.

Thanks for stopping by, Meg! It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. And thank you for giving the world Jessica Darling!

To commemorate the 10th Anniversary, I’d like you, the biggest supporters of my series, to share with me (and the world) what SLOPPY FIRSTS has meant to you. What form should your tribute take? That’s up to you. Write a heartfelt blog post about discovering SLOPPY FIRSTS in the bookstore. Make a video re-enacting the infamous “lip nip” with finger puppets. Compose a song incorporating one of Jessica’s many graphs, charts and lists. Create a line of SLOPPY FIRSTS inspired t-shirts. EXPRESS YOUR LOVE ANY WAY YOU WANT TO. Send me the link(s) to your awesome tributes via Twitter or my Facebook Page, tagged #sloppyfirsts10th. (If you are a nonparticipant in these social networks, you can always email me at megan@meganmccafferty.com.)

……BE CREATIVE AND HAVE FUN. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

I can’t wait to see what the fans come up with. And Meg has some fantastic prizes up for grabs, including “A SPECIAL 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION of SLOPPY FIRSTS. A one-of-a-kind copy randomly annotated in my (Megan’s) very own, very sloppy handwriting .” Umm, yes please!